By S. Sethuraman
None of the major political parties at the national or regional levels has any greater ambition than to have a dominant voice, or, never mind, even becoming a bit player in the making of the next Government at the Centre, even as the BJP and its campaigner-in-chief Mr Narendra Modi are confident of becoming the arbiter of post-election change. The only exception will be the new-comer AAP already in the field to take on all other parties.
The 2014 election for the 16th Lok Sabha, it would appear from the evolving pre-poll scenario, marks a distinct shift in the traditional pattern of the two pan-India parties going into the fight to claim the national mandate and other parties, regional or state, tagging themselves on to the bandwagon.
Instead, what we see is BJP has, for months ahead of the poll, been firing all its ammunition at the ruling Congress all over while the oldest party looks increasingly sceptical and is still groping for a strategy to override the anti-incumbency factor and fight for its retrieval on the political stage.
Day by day, the BJP is trying to fortify itself with an ally here and an outfit there to make up the 272 – the majority mark -it had originally promised for itself even as the vulnerability of the Congress party is on the rise.
Barring NCP of Mr Sharad Pawar confined to Maharashtra, the Congress is yet to find an ally of some substance in the rest of the country. Mr Rahul Gandhi in shining armour provides the spectacle of fighting a lonely battle in scattered pockets, whatever be its national impact at present. Be it said to his credit, Mr Gandhi is acutely aware of how the Congress has lost its grassroots appeal and what it means and costs to rebuild the once-glorious image of the Congress in the vanguard of the freedom movement.
But that is for the long haul and he, as second only to the supreme leader of the party, could have more vigorously engaged himself for such building from grassroots in the decade he kept himself away from power which would have been his, if he had been so inclined. Now, with all his empathy for the weaker sections and the downtrodden, his current forays cannot become a substitute for a strong alliance-based strategy for his party to take on primarily the daunting challenge from Mr Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, all other ‘netas’ of the party are cooling their heels in the comfort at the national capital which may not last for long. The Congress leadership assumes that its UPA Government’s recent ‘sops’ and other executive manoeuvres for sectional interests like job quota for Jats spread over Northern parts of the country – and more possibly under way – would do some good for the party in the elections.
With hardly six weeks before the start of the first stage of the Lok Sabha elections, the campaigning has been in full swing so far as BJP is concerned and at the state level, Ms. Jayalalithaa’s AIDMK has forged ahead with determination to win everywhere with her candidates selected for all the 40 seats (a few of which would be shared with CPI and CPI(M)).
Also, with a manifesto outlining her party’s growth and development goals with welfare dimensions not just in Tamil Nadu but for the country as a whole, Ms. Jayalalithaa is already ahead in launching AIADMK’s campaign on March 3. All other parties in the state are yet to tie up alliances. The BJP, hitherto a non-entity in Tamil Nadu politics, has spent frustrating weeks to coax Mr Vijaykant’s DMDK and Dr Ramadoss’ PMK into a BJP-led alliance to garner some seats and thus help Mr Modi ascend to power.
DMK leader Mr Karunanidhi has been praising the work and the focused campaigning of Mr Modi, though a DMK-BJP alliance is unthinkable for Mr Karunanidhi’s “secularism”. But in any case, a DMK-Congress alliance is firmly ruled out, the party’s general council is totally against it while Mr Karunanidhi has also persuaded himself to feel his best chance of countering Ms. Jayalalithaa at the Centre would be to keep options open for a post-poll alliance with BJP-led NDA as it did in pre-UPA times.
Apart from DMK, other state-level parties including DMDK also tend to feel that an alliance with Congress with its regime closely associated with corruption and inflation and poor governance leading to low growth, would leave them with fewer seats. Indeed, this has become a significant factor for parties in other states against getting into an alliance with UPA.
Also, in Tamil Nadu, AAP of Mr Arvind Kejriwal has entered the electoral arena with not less than a score of candidates and is making some headway, which makes it even more difficult for the Congress faced with multi-cornered contests though Mr G K Vasan, Minister of Shipping, keeps talking of an alliance in Tamil Nadu “at the right time”.
As at present, the Congress is faced with the prospect of battling alone in many states, outside Maharashtra, unless it could cobble alliances – not on its terms – with some of the major regional parties like BSP in UP. Even in Andhra Pradesh, UPA’s sudden decision to create Telengana, would not be giving it the rich dividends it had expected before bifurcation.
Mr Chandrasekhara Rao is averse to merge his party with Congress, as promised by him earlier, and wants to keep his TRS intact. At best, there could only be seat-sharing arrangements between the Congress and TRS. Nor in Seemandhra, despite the so-called “sops” like “special status” – which is triggering demands in Bihar and elsewhere-Congress would be able to make much progress vis-a-vis both the YSR Congress of Mr Jagmohan Reddy and the TDP.
Mr Chandrababu Naidu is willing to take his TDP into the BJP-led alliance. This may also apply to one or the other of the parties in the “non-BJP, non-Congress” front comprising regional and Left parties. In the event of an indecisive outcome, each party could begin to decide where its best interests (wielding or sharing power with the bigger parties) would lie. All this therefore may render the 2014 Lok Sabha election a unique event which reflects more a polity in disarray in the wake of severe setbacks to governance and management of the economy which the UPA would be leaving behind. (IPA Service)